CCI imposes INR 1337.76 crore penalty on Android for anti-competitive practice

13. Accordingly, in terms of the provisions of Section 27 of the Act, the Commission has imposed monetary penalty as well as issued cease and desist order against Google from indulging in anti-competitive practices that have been found to be in contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act. Some of the measures that were indicated by the Commission are as follows:

i. OEMs shall not be restrained from (a) choosing from amongst Google’s proprietary applications to be pre-installed and should not be forced to pre-install a bouquet of applications, and (b) deciding the placement of pre-installed apps, on their smart devices.

ii. Licensing of Play Store (including Google Play Services) to OEMs shall not be linked with the requirement of pre-installing Google search services, Chrome browser, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail or any other application of Google.

iii. Google shall not deny access to its Play Services APIs to disadvantage OEMs, app developers and its existing or potential competitors. This would ensure interoperability of apps between Android OS which complies with compatibility requirements of Google and Android Forks. By virtue of this remedy, the app developers would be able to port their apps easily onto Android forks.

iv. Google shall not offer any monetary/ other incentives to, or enter into any arrangement with, OEMs for ensuring exclusivity for its search services.

v. Google shall not impose anti-fragmentation obligations on OEMs, as presently being done under AFA/ ACC. For devices that do not have Google’s proprietary applications pre-installed, OEMs should be permitted to manufacture/ develop Android forks based smart devices for themselves.

vi. Google shall not incentivise or otherwise obligate OEMs for not selling smart devices based on Android forks.

vii. Google shall not restrict un-installing of its pre-installed apps by the users.

viii. Google shall allow the users, during the initial device setup, to choose their default search engine for all search entry points. Users should have the flexibility to easily set as well as easily change the default settings in their devices, in minimum steps possible.

ix. Google shall allow the developers of app stores to distribute their app stores through Play Store.